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10484 


COPYRIGHTED, 1897, 

BY REV. ASA COUNTRYMAN 



DEDICATION. 


O The Industrial Union, and to all In- 
dustrial Home builders, this little volume 
is Dedicated, And in behalf of the 
economics of the Sermon on the Mount 
animated by the spirit of^ Brotherhood, 
and exemplified by the wide Fraternity 
of an unsected Church-hood, 'these pages 
are commended by the author. 


DEMOCRAT PRINT, 
GREAT BEND, KANSAS. 
1897 . 


PART FIRST, 


THE DOMINIE AND THE DEACON. OR WHY 
THE LABOR LEAGUE WAS IN IT. 


CHAP.'L. 



R-PRY ranked as an 


ancient town even in 


that ancient valley, with 
its ancient settlement. 




beautiful, the picturesque. It was inviting 
from the first to the pioneer, who, with more 
than ordinary migrant taste and intelligence, 
being quick to detect the value and promise 
the situation lodged, lodged here also. This 




5 . 



more than compenfated him for the associa- 
tions and conveniences he had left, and had 
the advantage of home and treasure in real- 
ized comfort of the forward, half-slumbering, 
but ogling and amorous years. They now 
came to him in the open vision his foresight 
so readily and joyfully worked out of his as- 
suring dreams. The rank he brought with 
him he put into improvements, which had 
come to be the eminence, culture and pride 
of this heart of the great commonwealth. 

The general population had attained a so- 
cial attitude of no inferior range, but special 
elements of baronial caste shot up to rest the 
monotone and dotted the way into the pop- 
ulous and cultivated communities. Just in 
this immediate neighborhood the old baronial 
land marks were faded and less conspicuous. 
The ancient ambition to keep up the peculiar 
traditions of society in family and public 
fashions had been drained out of the older 
generations by 'the enervating luxuries that 



had come ’from the prosperous situation, 
while the new had formed more exciting as 
well as genial and up to time recreations and’ 
entertainment in other directions. Here was 
the border of the great Eseneg Valley, where 
the chase and the tally-ho had their anniver- 
sary to the gatherings of the immediate clans 
and to the diversion of those who cared to be 
informed and revived as to the fast departing 
traditions. The dead generations, with per- 
haps a growing presence of a third and a 
promising fourth, made it a composite popu- 
lation — more mixed than homogeneous and 
more a problem in harmony than results in 
solution. Still, by the "native bond, or the 
paradox, or miracle of discords, a harmony 
not understood, in the vital chords were stir- 
ing the common welfare of a most interesting 
as well as lofty and extensive region of 
people. 

“Dominie Wachter” was a conspicusous 
figure among this conspicuous people. He 





7 



also was composite in himself, a combination 
in some sense to tally \vith the double gener- 
ation with which he was dwelling Of lowly 
birth, his evolution into the personal self was 
seen and acknowledged by the position he 
occupied and the honor accorded him, not 
less evidenced by the native elements loftily 
conceded, rather than specially demanded 
If he reached into the humblest ranks by his 
birth, by his antecedents beyond, he ran into 
the regal Teutons, with a lighter vein into the 
Saxons. And if there were any traditions 
to cross him that disturbed the equality of 
sexes he swept them out of his family by the 
Co educational University, with open-honors 
to sons and daughters together. If the one 
were of kingly mind and rank the others were 
not less queenly in ability and state. Nor 
did he forget the points 6f difference between 
them. If in the curriculum it was free for 
both, he would stop to dispute no question, 
which could run fastest in it, which could 




endure most, or go farthest. That he 
would leave to the arbitrament of results, as 
they would inevitably appear and no conten- 
tion would prevent or interrupt or change. 
And if in emergent needs there were mutual 
helps across the lines of custom, to be served 
in common, there were two distinct phases 
that were absolute to each in the harmony of 
the human sphere. If the home meant a 
man in it, there was no immunity or repair 
for the absence or neglect of woman. Suf- 
frage, or white ribbon, or official position 
tested itself by the way it affected the action 
or relation of the woman to the home. To 
the individual, or womanhood in general, 
from this test there was no appeal. 

Certified in his position by the sextuple 
witness. Parson Wachter went in and out be- 
fore the community, not wholly by this en- 


m 


m 


9 



forcement, but by characteristic elements of 
his own. His outward personality being av- 
eragingly commanding, with like average of 
address, he carried with it all the marks that 
dated him into the rugged and thoughtful 
generations that rose near the Reformation, 
and before the Hegira of the Separatists from 
the Lowlands to the Rock-based mecca of 
the Pilgrims. 

“Dominie Wachter’’ was double aged, or 
rather combined in him the two aged phases 
that are counted separate but were in him 
united, or were the complements of one age or 
life. Youth had taken on its accretions and 
the germ in him had ripened into this unique 
manhood. More than three score years, and 
bordering on the last part of the other ten, 
he was fast being separated, by fault or pity, 
from the point where the descending scale of 




10 


m 





years began, and where the line of the half 
century marked him away from the accorded 
forces of society. But youth, having not 
been effeminate in his make-up, it had joined 
the vigor of his maturity in blending virtues. 
Happily united they pledged against all sig- 
nals ot decay, except wherein it inured to a 
perfect manhood, and it was served to its 
divinest estate. His limbs were yet blithe, 
his feet nimble, his nerves steady, his brain 
with a more eager and clearer grasp than in 
the curriculum, or in his ascent of age, his 
heart more tenderly devout than at the hey- 
dey or honey-moon of his experiences, his 
hope more assuring, his faith more inspiring 
and penetrating, to key him to the high pos- 
sibilities and privileges in the climax of his 
earthly destiny. 

“Dominie Wachter” was two-erad -con- 




11 



ditioned in him what was distinct in two eras 
or spheres, but what was in him a whole. 
The fossil past had no adherence to his liv- 
ing forward, new creating, new gathering 
impulses, nor did the ghastly dogmas, nor 
the ghostly superstitions. He left the silt of 
emotion to settle as he sifted the mane from 
the tangible and took with him into his 
thought and joy the precept of the wise 
Teacher, the feeling of the divine Lover, one 
of which had subsistence in the mind, the 
other had inspiration in the heart, while both 
had quickening and gladness of presence in 
an equal service of manhood together. Doc- 
trine and good-news were twin evangels to 
this preacher, as were the truth and glad- 
ness twin dwelling in him with warm em- 
braces. If there was darkness the light of 
the fires that burned the dross, purified and 


12 



made it light, and if there were afflictions the 
tears washed away the earth dust and left 
the clearest pearls for the inheritance. 

By this peculiar affection and sentiment 
the parson was separate. In his inner rela- 
tions he was a human solitude. Others 
might have been similar sentimentaled, but 
they scarcely voiced themselves or lived the 
ideal inspirations so as to be in touch 
with him, or he with them. Technically his 
name was on the roll of his church, and in 
the ordinary range of it they were in profes- 
sional relation, but they were apart when he 
went to prayer, and to the inner shrine of the 
truth. And in other communions, while he 
was formally touched into a shy welcome, 
the isolation of his inner self went into the 
situation, that had no label for his name. 
In this he was much an ascetic, a recluse. 




13 





while without he bore the light of his face in- 
to all kinds of darkness he could reach. He’ 
went into all avenues and purposes to 
give himself as he could to the absorbing 
world, not watchful as to who, or what, or 
how much any given soul should cast or 
press into the human “aching void,” In this 
phase he was cosmopolite — no moral line of 
labor or duty being existent that he did not 
pursue, and no open door of welfare that was 
in reach he did not enter, with all he could 
share for the work and the hearts that were 
calling. Having gotten himself unsought 
prominence already in this respect, solicita- 
tions made other demands and plead their 
opportunities, not less urgent, nor less 
pleasing. 

If the mystic craft had its inner circle for 
the divine touch of his service, and the youth- 


14 



ful Templars dre^v upon his presence and in 
fluence at their citadel by weekly and anni- 
versary occasions no inferior call was add- 
ed to the voices that preceded and the solici- 
tations that had prevailed. 

It was a prominent citizen of the rural peo- 
ple that made visit to the parsonage, until 
now a stranger to the reverened occupant. 
“Wo'ild he kindly accept the invitation to 
their friendly retreat, and while leading them 
into helpful ways, share with theni the fra- 
ternity that was in line with his social life, 
and in harmony with his ministerial func- 
tions?” The way of duty was here the way 
of privilege. The benediction was so plain 
and inviting it required no other logic to 
create response and to requite the brief and 
cordial interview. Mr, Draffas, the chief, 
represented the Yeoman’s Guild to the pres- 



ence of Mr. Wachter. The Guild was mostly 
rural aud if it consisted only of those who 
were of like labor profession, the associa- 
tion had prominence by the intelligence and 
character that made the agricultural popu- 
lation pronounced in the cultivated farms 
and palatial homes with tasty appointments 
for family luxuries and social refinements. 
If the city had repute by an excelling element 
of the provinces about it, the provinces them- 
selves were not the less in intelligence and 
self-asserting manhood and womanhood . In- 
deed, progress in the city scarcely kept pace 
with progress in the rural arts. Nor did the 
advance tread, but set birth to laudable 
rivalry, and perhaps contest the points where 
invaded interests dictated an alliance or In- 
dustrial Union for the common advantage 
that covered the secular, the social, as well 


■ 16 


as the intellectual phases of country life. 
Conceits of town society were making undue 


exaction, and unjust advantage was being 
taken by the tradesman whose prices bit at 
both ends of the producer’s pockets, and 
whose office, while it ought to be honored by 
action to serve himself equally with the pro 
ducer and consumer, was making for an ex- 
travagance against those by whom it ought 
to be reformed or ignored, for service to 
themselves in interests of their own. Prin- 
cipally the Rural Guild meant protection in 
the three aspects already spoken of, the most 
prominent being that which pertained to the 
business side of the Yeoman’s welfare. But 
business, although most conspicuous in the 
organized name, was not the most cherished 
or vital in the consideration. If the 
stated meetings were conspicuous for the 




17 



industrial interests, they were equally 
conspicuous for social and literary con- 
siderations. If the lodge had its weekly 
gatherings to devise ways and means, 
the hospitable and palatial homes had 
their frequent, gatherings, where the literary 
treat, the music and banquet resourced from 
the fruitful farm by the most skillful in cul- 
inary art, and enjoyed by the genial member- 
ship of both sexes, had scarcely a rival 
elsewhere. The salient thoughts, the crisp 
retort, the neighborly cheer, with the 



orchestal display of the quintette band were 


18 


memory makers, and attractions that ele- 
vated and forwarded the varied interests 



that went into wise adjustments of the 


farmer’s life, disturbed the rustic mono- 
tone and made neighborly harmony. 

But whatever this association represented 
or meant in its internal economy, it was 
not political. However kindred associations 
had trended in other parts of the coun- 
try, here it was non-partisan, and meant 
the more satisfactory profits of the farm, 
the more skillful management of it, and 
the more intelligent use of the means at 
hand for the improvement of it, as well 
as the improvement of the rural home. 
Uniting to this broad end each retained 
and discussed the bias of his mind, as to 
the methods that would best serve the prog- 
ress which lay in the purpose for which 





they were banded together. 

Not a league from Er-Pry was seated 

a sparsely scattered village among the 
tall, but finely towering trees of out 
spreading and leafy branches. Here 
an association, of taste and wealth had 
built Revlis-ekal for the special delights 
of summer, with some hints of profit dur- 
ing the fashionable and entertaining season. 
The traditions had long been written over this 
point of land at the beautiful lake by the Red 
man with his bow and arrow and his canoe, 
by the hunt for the deer and the tribes in the 
crystal waters. And in this sheet of water, 
nestling between the gently sloping hills, 
from the west and east, with outlet and 
inlet in near embrace, was once sporting 
the sea monster to the wonder of the 
exciting newspapers and the pocket of the 


Mi 


m 


landlord to recover the folly of his extrav- 
agant caravansary. -But now, although the 


canoe, the arrow, the coppery tribe, the deer 
and the silurean monster had departed, 
there was even wider, if not intenser 
presence in the spaces, by the skiffs, the 
steamer, the park, the pavilhon, the audi- 
torium; besides palace, and cottage, chapel, 
and railway. Here the trumpet of the press 
is voiced by swift winged messages to 
attract the ears of the region round about. 
Here is proffer for missions, for language, 
for literature, for art and for pleasure. 
Into this picturesque valley and to this 
lake-side retreat come the long laden 
trains, and pour their social thousands into 
this woody enclosure. Here the pictures 
on the canvas of an evening, and the 
pictures of the orators, not so clear or 




21 



perhaps so pleasurable during the day, 
greet the audiences that fill the pavillion - 
half serious, half mindful, semi-somnolent; 
a motley multitude of saints and sinners, 
of cits and farmers, of believers and skeptics, 
of credulity workers and nothingarians. 
The most famous to entertain, and espec- 
ially to draw the mdltitude of pockets into 
the pockets of the association, were the 
sought for attractions. And it was now the 
most renowned that posed as one of the 



clan that was moved to the welfare of 


^ ^ — t 

the injured people, that were the pur- 
suit of wealth and syndicate, gold and 
banks, middlemen and drought, chinch and 
hoppers, and a host of other things that 
were more serious than playful. But 
while the. home part of the assemblage 
had no special experience in the direction 
• here hinted, they were eager listeners, 
with enough of experience to appreciate 
tlie points that were waiting with eager- 
ness to come with keenest heed to their 
approval. The fiat had gone forth for 
reform, to the laborer as well as the pro- 
ducer, and they were in the reform. Labor 
Leagues had gathered from all over the 
region. Alliances greeted each other with 
cordial hand. Industrial Unions were con- 
gratulating each other on the trend of the 
times, and what they were doing for it. 





23 


Ml 


It was Labor day, it was farmers’ day, 
jd the farmers aod laborers were there 
in tull^rce. And the speaker was there 
also in more force than usual. He was 
there — all of him — the great candidate for 
a great office. The audience sat and 
heard no weak eloquence of the great 
leader. They listened and applauded, 
then doubted in silence, but respectfully 
awaited the sequel. On questions, strip- 
ped of all bias of mere party, by which 
to supercede some other party, on ques- 
tions that took in principle rather than 
bludgeon by which to destroy some other 
that stood in the way of political prefer- 
ment, on questions to be the true exec- 
utors of the right, and for the people’s 
justice and honor, rather than to be 
favored into the power and emoluments 


ii- 


24 



of the government, the listeners respond- 
ed with delight. They had leained the 
betrayel of trust in leaders to whom they 
had readily given their suffrages. The 
people had heard of this great orator 
before and had admired, as they had 
waited to see, the final point in the pur- 
pose. The assembly was a grand inspira- 
tion in itself to the speaker. He was 
immersed in the sentiments he represented 
where he was the native product, or 
where he and such as he were the makers 
of them, but was too absorbed in this 
making to be hardly conscious of the ele- 
ments that were here, unlike those that 
included his workmanship before, by ex- 
perience, as well as by much that differ- 
ed for the essential reform. Stripped of 
partisan purpose, his logic was command- 




m 




m 


25 


ing, and th? genius of his linguistic art 
was steadily towards the capture of the 
clans. The mere political drift had scarce- 


ly disturbed the 

feet 

of those 

who 

were anchored in 

this 

fertile soil. 

and 


did not feel the reverses of the “chinch” 
and “drought” elsewhere, and who were 
now seated before him, with intelligent if 
not with captious brains, to direct them 
and ..make them judgement, He felt the 
political drift of his own region. He felt 
it in his mind, his head, his purpose, and 
could not hold it out of his language. 
Nor would his language have been com- 
plete if he had. That which it tended 
to was to be the point, the climax, the 
crowning victory of his presence and 
speech. And he was coming to it — had 
worked to it with the skill of a master. 





more than with the intuitive discernment 
ot the exact situation that challenged his 
wisdom an-* confronted his ambition. 
Then as if in the supreme moment, he 
launched into confiding rapport with his 
inner purpose. Starting into a brief re- 
view on the wrongs of labor, by combi- 
nation of capital, by greed of trusts, and 
injustice of tradesmen, he deftly turned 
himself on the parties with belaboring 
zeal, and slightly grazing the weakly of 
them, he would make his peroration fall 
upon the vital part, to the assembly, now 
led along the lines he was sure they 
were focused to his word. And at the 
end of a skillfully wrought and passionate 
appeal, hd said: “The old parties, the 
once ‘unterrified’ and the G. O. P. are 
dead.” ^It was a ghastly sound as from 



■i7 




the tombs, to that multitude of listening 
ears and attentive minds. It was an in- 





congruous reverse in that hope-looking, 
cheer-feeling audience that was suddenly 
called to a somber sight and doleful sound. 
There was hope that here was the issue of 
reform rather than that of death to 
the great powers that had helped the 
country thus far in the prosperous way of 
its destiny. And when the speaker made 



the ghost appear in their midst the sepul- 
chral silence came to make courtesy to the 


W 


28 



scene. But the audience soon realized that 
it was not the ghost of the parties, but 
the bidded ghost of an overwrought fancy 
of the speaker, and a new breath came 
and started a half frightened No! then an 
other No less timid, then another and an- 
other, until the roof of that pavillion rang 
with a stentorian NO! all in one, as it had 
never echoed before. The speaker stood 
and waited. He was not entranced, per- 
haps confused. He had misjudged. But 
he recovered enough to make the ques- 
tion: “Don’t you think so? All that don’t 
think that they are dead hold up your 
hands.” And how the Yeomen’s hands shot 
up their horny suffrages, while their rustic 
throats made the rustic building tremble to 
the woody arches of that Daphne by the 
lake, and swept the orator from the stage. 


29 



At least when the the sensation subsided 
and the vision centered where he stood, 
when he evoked the thunder-burst of pas- 
sion, not a shadow remained of Mij. 
Revaew, the once sparsely honored candi 
date for the chief office of the Great 
Republic. 

The Industrial Union was not political 
in this ancient seat of the noblest pursuits. 
Too much self respect entered into consid- 
eration of its merit, to transcend even the 
qestion of party. The occupation that was 
the basis for sturdy society and renewed 
the degenerate blood of cities and towns; 
that furnished the thrift of the state, the 
prosperity and strength of a nation, had 
dignity that added nothing to itself by 
assisting in a mere scramble for partisan 
power. Party sat lightly, which ever bias 



30 



still held them. It was reform for which 
they were acting in lines that were indi- 
cated by their association. But they knew 
that traditional ties were not easily brok- 
en, nor was the demise of party as easily 
seen as they had heard, or as he could 
speak,' whose wish was doubtless '‘father 
of the thought,” although he had been 
favored with all of them, and was now 
caressing the crest of the most receut 
movement, while singing the dirges of those 
whose funeral oration he had asked to 
be applauded but which was so roundly 
protested. 

And if Dominie Wachter’s sympathies 
with this people, for easier purchases and 
better sales; if he favored efforts that 
lifted to higher social standing and intel- 
lectual conditions, and his relations 



JLft. 


31 


f 


# — — _J#- 


with this Guild brought him recip- 
rocal helpfulness in delight to himself and 
increased friendship for his parish, he was 
learning that all this was not without some 
losses in other directions. 




m 


32 



CHAP. II 


'■j Parson Wachter had gone in and out 
before the people a couple of years, and 
was informed by the proper authority that 
his administration would be acceptable 
for the third, in addition. But although 
this information was confirmed to the 
third time, and that by an expressed ma- 
jority, yet action on the part of Mr. 
Wachter was put in suspense by consider- 
ations not entirely common to the priestly 
office. A little suspicion was excited in 


W 










0 * 


the first engagement as to the stalwart 
condition of the candidate on the theology 
that was largely represented in the society 
he had to take in charge. It was re- 
called that Dominie Wachter had officiat- 
ed in the pulpits of other names, and he 
might not be properly labeled, nor be 
sufficiently qualified by sentiment, even if 
he had the courage to do the high sectarian 
act ill the battle which the anti hadean 
art required. But the matter having pro- 
ceeded too far to have anything sufficient 
to conceal the dishonor of a reverse con- 
clusion, including the prominence of gen- 
eral pulpit and pastoral fitness, the en- 
gagement was allowed to stand, and 
formally confirmed only to be ratified at 
the close of the year by the cordial act 
of an accordant parish. It was not how- 





34 



ever now the same point that made the 
suspense, although there was a quiet feel- 
ing that more dogma of sect and less of 
the devout, more of the letter and less 


of the spirit, would have had more agree- 


able acceptance by those who are now 
in the minority, as the protesting part of 
the parish. 

When Dominie Wachter first came to 
the pretentious town of Er-Pry he fell on 
an incident of near Zachaen proportions. 
It was a “middler” and of little stature, 
having a piod in his hand. It was the 
symbol of his calling, or perhaps more to 
his liking, the sceptre of his otfice. In a 
public place he had come into an introduc- 
tion of the new minister, and if he did not 
ascend the Sycamine it was the platform 



m 


35 



back of where the subjects were held, over 
whicli his authority presided, and out of 
which he got the receipt of his wealth pro- 
ducing customs. His traditional faith, which 
had been tucked away in his youthful port- 
folio had formal name with the parish to 
which Dominie Wachter had recently been 
called, and which a sainted mother, 
soon deceased after the call, had helped 
him to, and which, what he was suited to 
entertain of it, and was quietly nestling in 


him, was given a little eloquence of the 
kind he could occasionally indulge, with a 
self pleasing satisfaction. He felt like doing 
a little preaching on his own account, and 
to show that all professionals were not 
alone religious. He was proud to commit 
himself to the unpopular faith, launching 



36 


Blli 



out with the compliments to it, as if it had 
been a familiar eloquence out of portfolio 
times. He did not hesitate to point the 
special meaning of it, as if all els-e was as 
nothing, or mostly as secondary. Indeed 
it might have been thought that this point 
was absorbing in him as if it included all 
there was o.f the faith. “It was absurd,’’ 
he said, ‘ that the ‘Supreme Goodness’ 
specially presiding on the other side this 
terrestial border-land would indulge in the 
penal diversion that we are set against, on 
those who are too busy to think what they 
do or say before they go there.” This 
sounded a little like apologies the Dominie 
had heard before, and if there was nothing 
in, it very inspiring by way of an introduc- 
tion, from a member he was likely to see 
prominent, it was packed away with all 





37 



'-’'nr 



others like it. But he was hardly pre' 
pared to accept the profession of belief, as 
the prelude to his vernacular just a little 
further on. It was the vernacular current 
in stock-yards and some other places, the 
middle man seasoned his speech with, as 
if to witness the estimate he put into the 
greatness of his effort. Nor was he him- 
self quite prepared for the accidental 
episode, that caught him in the posture of 
his fervent devotions. He did not intend 
to project a classical evidence of his regard 
for the “Supreme Goodness” on unsuspect- 
ing ears just as the vernacular happened 
to take his tongue into the classic service. 
The way the color of his face set in to 
sympathize with the peculiar articulation 
of his elbow back of the prod, that chuck- 
ed into the ribs of the horny headed 




88 


Mk 


ill 


wards, sufficiently indicated that this was 
more of a private episode of an animal 
practitioner than for the dainty ears of a 
man that he was to meet at the home altar, 
at funerals and in the pulpit, and whose 
chief occupation or tastes was encouraging 
the virtues and in training for heaven. 
Nor was this unexpected circumstance soft 
ened to the parson, nor to the other party, 
when the two faced each other unexpected- 
ly, but fraternally, at the secret altar of 
the craft. And what added effect might 
be seen coming from a large Initial 



prominently displayed in a conspicuous 





.39 



place in that mystic circle, serving much 
as the look of certain eyes did on a lapsing 
brother some centuries before, This Initial 
to the exact science, not Isss than that to 
the Exact Architect stood for a name no 
initiate could take irreverently with pleasing 
effect to his lips, or with loyal regard for 
the institution to which he became solemnly 
committed. Bat if disturbing emotions made 
compensation to have place in the hands 
of the Deaccn, not less were his efforts in 
other directions. 

The wording of the ritual that engage-J 
him, although elegant in sentiment, secured 
no superfluous flow of spirit as if some re- 
straint prevented to make the effort fitly 
impressive. The tongue evidently strove to 
point the occasion with suitable eloquence, 
and if the occasion and eloquence were a 


m 


40 




long distance apart it was riot because there 
was lack in the reach of the brother to 
put them together. And the speech also 
meant well for the “faith,” but if it slipped 
at the recurring impulse by which the 
descent of man is made, it also hinted 
where the words of the lips and the actions 
of the other part are not together, and 
what it takes to make them congenial and 
working partners. 

The bias of the Deacon’s business was 
not eased by the helpful association of 
Dominie Wachter with the Guild. No co- 
operative action was conducive to the profit 
or encouragement in the speculative art to 
the extent, the submissive customs had 
allowed it to be. Innocent of any ill 
though in connection with this association 
lying in the lines of economic interests, 




41 


scaled to a triple human welfare, especi- 
ally a s applied to the agricultural 
classes, Dominie Wachter kept in close 
relations with it, and in active effect. Nor 
had he counseled himself as to the unusual 
halt in the treasury to point its monthly 
“morals.” He simply at once proceeded 
to replenish his lack by resources outside 
his immediate profession, to say nothing 
of the added delight it afforded and the ex- 
tension of his friends as well as usefulness. 
Fertile of taste as well as resources, Mr. 
Wachter was not slow to adapt himself to 
the prominence given the Columbian Anni- 
versary of the nation. With facilities al- 
ready put to use in other laudable lines, 
enforced by personal sight of the exposition 
marvels, he illustrated by speech and in- 
strument the extent and progress of the 


42 



country, awakening the people in contiguous 
districts, while giving them the evening’s 
delight in the greatness of their inheritance, 
and to a better appreciation of the progress 
since the country was born. This useful 
delight became a prominent feature in all 
that region to the social honur of the Guild, 
to the personal and financial honor of the 
Dominie, if not to the treasury, the key to 
which, being in the hands of a worthy youth 



with mark for a domestic felicity cer- 



m 


4; 



tified by the hand of an accomplished bride 
under seal of the Parish Parson. 


And while the financial action on the 

part of Dominie Wachter invaded the tra- 
ditional dignity of the parish, it worked to 
the saving of his own honor, and mended 
the other. The mere piety and fashion 
might have been more by earning the 
salary the genteel, the evangelical way, or 
have it paid when it was due, but there 
was much revival work m patriotism, 
some substantial supplies for the pocket, 
with more delight than sacrifice that went 
with the effort to enlighten the national 
darkness, and make it an increasing joy. 
The traditional conceit also still lingering 
in the parish, from where it was the lead- 
ing one of the kind in all that region, its 
pride was posed on its marked preference 



44 


by both faith and morals, that ought not to 
be compromised by a secular social service 
that went with the lowly, on part of its 
representative. 

For these preferences conceit was 
plainly on the surface in superior air 
over their neighbors, and removed them 
from the lines of life that ranged with the 
inferior. But Mr. Wachter realized that 
superiority came from the superior things 
that were done, rather than believed or 
spoken, and so kept himself in active sym- 
pathy with reforms that allied himself with 
the oppressed classes. But this was, how- 
ever, disturbing the established order of 
society, and business as well, to say nothing 
of church. The currents of trade had set 
in the way with the hands of the few that 
make it, holding it against the multitudes. 





45 





m 


Business had its conventional way, not to 
be disturbed, even if it made poverty and 
shame and wretchedness, and exalted the 


•few above the many. 

And refinements of the church had got- 
ten elegance into its fibre and could not 
make defiled touch or gesture by religious or 
secular economics that even signaled that 
way. And the minister of their gospel was 
not to make touch or care in the special 
points that tradition had made sharp against 
Innovations, that would make new deal in 
the things that were said to go by the so- 
ciological way into the new way of living. 
Nor was the imperial phase of the situa 
tion without witness in social directions. 
If labor is the lot of people in geneial and 
economy a virtue, that general does not 
often include the inmates of the parsonage. 




46 



m 


Large salaries, promptly paid, have more 
than small attention in exemptions and caste, 
while small stipends have less, slowly eked 
out of shoddy aristocratic pockets. 

It was a Monday accident that threw the 
lady into mild convulsions and the parish 
into a crisis. Cleanliness being reported as 
next to Godliness by those who had seen 
how their proximity affected each other, 
the laundry was sometimes thought to be 


m 


a necessary, if not a saving adjunct to the 
pulpit, also the kitchen to the session 
room, as-'the parlor to the auditorium of 
the meeting house. And the presence in 
the one was much the leading presence in 
the other, even if there were the more 
aesthetic or pleasurable appointments of ap- 
parel and duty in the former than in the latter. 


m 


47 


m 


iM 


If every closet had its skeleton, according 



to a most approved proverb, that skeleton 


is in full force and with peculiar antics on 
Monday in the wash-room, and is suggest 
ive of the fact, that if excursions are to 
be made on neighbors, with no presumable 
unpleasant reception, and leave only amiable 
reflections from either side of it, no more 
genial or considerate art invites to the par- 
sonage, than to any other cottage where i 
people have to eliminate the foreign aer- 




vant and economize to make the ends meet, 
less or more ends as they may number. In 
this case it was an apron — no doubt it was 
something else, too — but on the surface, 
and most conspicuous, it was mostly 'an 
apron. That was the conceded symbol of 
the cleanly office and the shield of the wo- 
man who was the faithful matron of the 
home, the superviser of the wash-room in 
it, the genial entertainer of it, as well as 
the righteous ministerial assistant under con- 
tract of expectancy, but without pay, ex- 
cept as it was extracted from the abund- 
ant praise or blame, as compensation for 
being the pastor’s second, if not sometimes 
the first, with the holding of the parsonage 
besides. 

The bell that usually called with an in 
viting voice, came with some harshness of 



49 





tone and reluctance for reply, on the ten- 
sion of the nerves that were strung to^ the 
haste and desire to end the somewhat 
melting scene in the kitchen. It was no 
parlor hour, and the alkaline or some other 
line of vapor was not easily transformed into 
the amiable aroma, to which effort in mi- 
racle, the bell had summoned the trans- 
former of the fabric, by an act scarcely 
more difficult or marvelous than the other. 
But it brought her to the door mailed in 
suit, made and provided for the occupation 
in which she had been immersed, and from 
which just emerged, but not up to the 
dainty trosseau of a bridal summons, or the 
standard paraphernalia for a reception in the 
circle ot fashion. The apparel was an 
average for an office she was honoring, 
with a sense of an importance more in its 



utility than in its beauty, and the coiifure, 
with the color of her cheeks and the dewy 
symbols that had obtruded quickly in place 
of those she had just dispersed with an 
unreut corner of the offending apparel had 
its more than average effect. Escaping 
here the details, and lingeriug if not of years, 
the event that shocked the sight of 
Smailliw, put her husband into insolvency, 
abbreviated his breathing and while privately 
arresting his^^ pulse, turned the mystic 
tie into an eleemosynary bond to keep her 
for the rest of her deficit life, and drove 
the offender from the parish Paradise. 

The ancient Retep of heavenly proclivi- 
ties, with consignments of an art, looked at 
the man by the mundane Jerusalem gate, 
giving him not scorn, nor even chiding, but 
kindly words, then “lent a hand” with 



51 




healing. Aprons, wash-day aprons and all, 
with other light bandanna effects on the 
body, and the body itself, not supposed to 
have lately gone through any laving process 
of any forerunner, were stored with his grac- 
ious esculapian art; but this modern case at 
Er-Pry had more the action and effect of 
Annanias and his close following Sapphira, 
a more extended romance of which may be 
seen executed true to life and the other, in 
the Acts of all Acts. 

Herein, as elsewhere, Retep, the Great, 
was a most conspicuous figure and per- 
former, and was thus detailed by a rustic 
scribe of ironical and not over reverent 
fame: — 

“Going on a diversion with his brother, he 
sauntered with a shambling gait and an 
impetuous curiosity aftei the sensation with 





which a Nere-zana had captured that part 
of the country — was a most prominent guest 
in the most select company at a most 
renowued banquet of any age, and fear- 
fully affected by it, made a mark master 
of the priest’s faithless craftsman with his 
sword in a tyled camp in the garden suburb 
of the imperial city. He was rude by his 
prevarication and indecorous words to 
the ears of the insidious but taunting 
maiden — discharged a copious shower of 
regretful and tearful penitence over the 
uncivil reminder of the predestined but 
officious and obnoxious Bird, that with flap 




53 





of wing, and strut of feet, and extent of 
throat, mixed politics and religion together, 
caring for neither, but seasoned the mess 

with his crow for the eating it. He ran 
away from Boanerges to appease his avarice 
at the royal vault to be disappointed in the 
vacancy by the rifled treasures— turned 
skeptic, and went a-fishing over the news 
about the rifling resurrectionists -quarreled 
with Suluap about some defunct tradition 
that both knew wouldn’t fit well into the 
common sense of their new creed. He 
broke tbe peace by his harangues and was 
arrested, then broke jail by the assistance 
of an accomplice, but appeared as a ghost 
to frighten a lers insidious damsel than the 
other with whom he was warmer, but 
“continued knocking” at the gate until the 
ghost had put on his flesh and blood, and 


M 


54 




stopped the fright, which happened not far 
from the gate Beautiful where he had hor- 
rified the pious crowd by starting a man 
into a dance, with feet that never had even 
walked before. And to atone for anything 
that might have gone wrong with him, he 
put his shadow to more good uses than we 
can guess, for the simple people, and raised 
the magic of an occult fancy to a tangible 
art and to a divinely exact science. He also 



rejoiced a whole “Ladies Aid Society” and 
a pensioned community by a restoration of 


m 






-'TIT 


m 


its extinct President and a renewed Sacrod; 
thereby calling a jubilee of them all together, 
and endowing a saint-ship for the grateful 
service. After this he bad a seance on the 
house-top, sheet-netted with savory game 
that made him hungry, then went to allay 
his old-time prejudices of caste and taste, 
being enticed to Appoj by a super-vision he 
dared not resist, when by all authenticate 
applications he initiated an officer of rank 
into the mysterious Circle of which he was 
chief, while to him and his select company 
he explained the seance at Saraecea Pipliphil, 
and the meaning of the visit to the presence 
unto which he had been called— suppli- 
menting all this by a sort of a Uriah Heep 
apology that threw him into an apotheosis 
to Heaven for the imbecil conceit he had 
got of himself. For this he was made the 


*15 



56 




head centre of all bishoprics, that startled 
the great Cosmic Era, to include all the 
nations and to absorb the best of all tongues, 
flaming and otherwise, into the Glenish, to 
go into the Universal for the brotherhood of 
the lesser Here and the greater There. 
Finally, not to summarize further, the 
unique Retep started optionless, but with 
a sacrifice that became him, for Hades, 
with his head down to be odd, if not 
humble, to see his Lord, and get the vice- 
gerents emoluments of of the Kingdom.” 

Dominie Wachter did not read the divine 
economics in the light of self, or as a gospel 
of gain — a power of the strong over the weak 
— a trust of bonded wealth over the laborer 
— a government of officials over the people — 






57 



m 




a subjection of talent and skill, of invention 
and industry, to sordid and tyrannous capi 
tal. His gospel was sharing advantage on 
the basis of equal and exact justice to 
capital and labor by suitable arrangements 
for each. It was the common welfare not 
greed, it was Golden Rule Economics, 
not creed — it was character, not caste — it 
was duty, not pride — it was ready will for 
need, not defilement at sight or touch of 
the lowly. It was virtue to impart to others, 
and to requite all offices in all grades of 
duty and love. It was not renewed pre- 
tense, but genuine quality after the pattern 
of Him who is the Excellence and Type of 
all absolute manhood and womanhood. 




58 




HE parish at Er-Pry par- 
took of the pretension of 
the town. If it had so- 
cial and business promi- 
nence, it had pride by 
a lady that gave much 
direction to it by tradi- 
tional place of her recently demised 
ancestor, and by a professorship in the 
Village Academy. But much of its glory 
had departed. Some of it had gone to the 
silent land, while some of it had gone into 
other communions, and a little bad gone 
nto the imagination. And what there was 
came to wrestle with an unseemly reflec 
tion as to those they called into clerical 
service only to adversely turn them into 
other pursuits. 

In recent years, one of popular parts 



W 




59 




in other parishes, and with general com- 
munities, under a brief experience, exchang- 
ed the pulpit for the press. Another of 
younger years, and more educated gifts, 
exchanged the gospel for the law, Another 
of education and eloquence left the meet- 
ing house for the Church in Capitals. 
Still another, after a brief incumbency, went 
into an insurance, not of souls from the 
perils of a soul perdition hereafter, but of 
bodies from something more tangible in 
the now. These, after short terms if not 
short allowance, were short successors to 
each other. And now Dominie Wachter, 
although thrice assured of the crown of 
continuances, thought it proper to abdicate 
and put away the confirmed honor, and go 
into exile from this final experience in a 
profession he had long found cordially 


W 


60 


‘-TTIT 


responsive to his noblest ambition. The 
limits of the clerical profession, while it 
grew to exceed the supply, also seemed to 
grow more straitened. It was not perhaps 

by any closer restriction than usual, but 

» 

by the expansion that he grew into, as he 
grew more into the knowledge and aptness, 
as well as sympathies which the real office 
he held contained. Its spirit and economy 
had widened to his sense of a sacred and 
eternal fitness of things. Tradition and sect 
meant the one church name, labeled after 
the man or men that labeled it. The label 
must be conspicuously worn, on the frontlef 
or on the neck, even to stifled breathing or 
the distress of the temples. It must be 
worq to dazzling brightness to reflect 
against all others. The wearer must be a 
champion rather than an evangel. The 






/ 


ministerial office was a straitened office. 





Since it was set apart — an apostello -it 
must be that in the narrow line of a man 
made creed, and a man made range of duty. 
It wasn’t to go out into the by-ways and 
hedges where the lowly people dwelt, and 
half subsisted, and yearned for the divine 
' office that compels them to see and be 
satisfied. It was the straitened office, the 
priestly office, to pass by on the other side, 
and functioned with no breadth of action. 
It was a gospel of devotion and prayers to 
be sure, but of strictures on any excursions 
out into the gospel of work and harmonizing 
sociologies. And it was also rivalries and 
contentions for precedence and place in the 
synagogue. It might not have been more 
so in Er-Pry than elsewhere, but it was 
peculiarly so in this once ancient seat of 





02 



prominent position and social grace. It 
seemed to have been shadowed by a per- 


petual seeker for the place. No doubt his 
ambition conspired with the exaulted situa- 
tion, but there were other considerations 
that joined with these to point his other- 
wise friendly but peculiar accents of his 
voice. He was a semi-chief of the Yaw Ah 
Tah, a tribe which in early days had a 
place in the Wyo. Valley, and a remnant 
being now left. Having become identified 
with the civilized customs, he also aspired 
somewhat successfully to the office of an 
evangelist. In this neighborhood the Teppe 
had been transformed into a rustic cottage 
in which the Chief had put some of his 
ministerial wampum. In this cottage lived 
a maiden, with blanched cheeks, blondly 
penetrating eye, over-hanging and wav- 





63 



ing treses, of spiightly step, with fair and 
graceful figure, Fleet of mind and keen of 
scent into society happenings, she delighted 
to gather the news from week and lay it 
as an offering on the altar of the Setag 
Press, and continued it with only less 
expert zeal, when the owner thereof had 
gone to the hunting grounds that had its 
borders, dotted with the milky-way. Her 
related chief, with perpetual desire for the 
honors of the parish, was always ready with 
stealthy designs, native to his race, to unrest 
the confidence of the incumbent in the 
minds of the parish, or make his overtures, 
at any opening that might make it possible 
for his waiting. This worthy ambition, even 
if not always properly displayed, Mr- 
Wachter felt he ought to have the recurring 
opportunity to appease it. At least some- 




64 




body was welcome to all the emoluments 
there were to the situation. 

The outside people turned into spectators 
of the oft recurring changes, and there were 
critics that turned the case into sarcastic 
speech out of which was formulated the 
“Pulpit Extinguishers ” They did not stop 
to say how much was lodged in the clerics 
themselves, but they rested the formula on 
the parish, and there they left it. But the 
retiring Mr. Wachter, grieving over this ill- 
addition to the afflictions of the excellent 
men and women of the majority in the 
parish, and to his favor, left witness to them 
in the benediction he gave as he prepared 
for his departure, and left them well invested 
for the near future. He had by his name, 
secured the finances already for his suc- 
cessor, with a margin left over last year, to 




65 


m 


0 


proceed with no break or embarrasinent to 
the treasurer. And with no moderate effort 
he suited his absence to the vacant parson- 
age that was being cleansed and garnished 
to take him— his successor — in. And this is 



the legen-’ that followed the new parson’s 
introduction: — 

It was on a Sunday morning. A strange 
sight and a composite picture. It appeared 
at .the entrance of the Kirk and within. 
The orchestra made a unique performance, 
the audience was under its spell, except that 


part of it which never divined ttie difference 
between - ‘America” and the “Doxologv ” or 
ttie excellence of either. Nad Town-lank, 
with his agonizing tenor belabored the oro- 
tund basso, while the delicate soprano 
sweetened the chords in the melody, and 
the contralto pedaled the organ to enrich 
the harmony by tone and instrnnient no 
less than by voice of her own, while the 
new minister vocalized the pulpit and the 
corners of the meeting house by palming 
them with an instrument somewhat after the 
effect of a pibroch or a banjo. Without 
was a characteristic response to the situa- 
tion within, though it might seem gotten 
up on its own account, having meaning of 
itself, and as in no'manner even sympathetic 
or similar. It was the picture of a dapper 
little man, with a mystic sceptre in one 
hand and cleaver in the other. Just opposite 



him was a lamb and a fleece of wool. 
Beneath and mid way between the two was 
the regal form ot an octogenarian, gray- 
bearded and white-locked, with little stoop 
of shoulders as an Atlas bearing "the rounded 
burden. Grouped about him was a finely 
figured and ornately dressed company of 
youthful matrons and maidens, prominent 
of which was a keen, dark-eyed damsel, 
with a tinsel crown, while a golden device 
clasped her glossy tresses behind her 
spangled ears. And all this reposed in a 
felicitous legend in manner of Bas Relief as 
a mirage from a desert. It started “C. 
Abat” — the other part of the word might 
have been caught by vigilant eyes, but it 
disappeared, and in its stead came, in dark 
letters set in sunny borders, “C. S. League,” 
as if to leave here a riddle for the mortal 
years. 






68 


PART SEGOED 



THE TENDERFOOT AND THE MONEY LENDER. 
OR HOW THE PARSON WAS PICKED 
OUT OF HIS H03IESTEAD. 

CHAP. I. 


r 



O. Valley was a preten- 
tious city, • with a home 
interest in the heart of it. 
Environments pressed 
Mr. Wachter’s thoughts, 
and then his feet, towards 


it. A business transaction some years ago, 
had given it a place in dreams that made 
themselves bright with pictured rest, and 
when the secular exigencies should ap- 





69 



•"VTir’ 



pear, this also would appear in the scene 
to make it real. Hitherto this all had been 
vague, even in shadow, while with the years 
the shadow grew more grim than evolving 
into the enjoying reality. Tenants and 
deterioration went on together in the twenty- 
five by a hundred feet dimensioned ground, 
with a peculiarly constructed tenement occu- 
pying the larger half of it. Here the heart 
of the city once pulsated, and lot values 
were in upper figures. It was the popular 
centre of the town, in all that pertained to 
the vital businness and convenience of it. 
But a new impulse had made a diversion at 
right angles with the street where this centre 
was located. Even since this diversion 
there was revenue to keep the balance even 
in the battle between the income and the 
expenses. But nothing kept the city to its 


70 


11 ^ 



hif^h financial mark, nor the tenement from 
the corrosion of the elements, or the improvi- 


dence of those who v\ere more industrious 
in promises, than efficient in prudence or 
economy, that strike hands with conscience 
and honor to perform them. The situation 
had been interviewed and the proprietor 
had already given efforts at improvement 
witiiout immediate molestation of the occu- 
pants. These had been indulged for many 
months, while pledges had statedly accum- 
ulated in the scale of their dues, with no 
increase of distress to the debtor from the 
patient but disappointed landlord. But sym- 
pathetic as he was, it urged itself upon his 
thought that the limits to his “county house” 
enterprjse ought to go into the wider 
range of the city. Now that he bad become 
a part of the city himself the burden could 






m 



71 


not so secuiedly, and with such sane;-froid, 
be kept upon him. He had furnished the 
tenant for the city’s poor, for a year or 
more — even two years, and it would be only 
honorable that he be relieved. The tenants 
must seek other quarters, not so much even 
now, that he had already a wide margin of 
charity from the landlord, but that the 
tenement might be arrested in its ruin and 
be repaired. He could not, however, retire 
with clear account, nor would it be humane 
to take the chatties that had been made secur 




72 





ity for it. But the propietor would accept 
anV service the family could render, and 
with it was that in the usual line of industry 
that lies in a - ‘mother’s refuge from despair.” 
If cleanliness is next to Godliness, poverty 
and despair might be twinly related, also 
with ugly features without and perhaps with 
some streaks of beauty within. But poverty 
had come to be even too exacting for this 
refuge, being unable lo obtain the essential 
aids to make the laundry effective, whence 
a “Russian,” or an “Ivory” attended the 
weekly package of soiled garments, although 
nearly three-quarters of a hundred dollars 
were already to his credit, most of which 
would doubtless remain that way. The 
package had been sent and business had 
taken his attention. Then came a reflection, 
followed by a creeping sensation into the 





m 


73 


* 



mind of the sender, as if something thought 

less and painful had transpired. He stop- 
ped and mused, then stood transfixed, 

the pulse quickened and then outran itself 

and was for a moment still. “Had he, or 

had he not done what he feared he might 

do?” The device was well enough, but if 

he should forget. Had he forgotten? And 

tlien, all too real, it flashed upon his mind 

that he had done just that ruinous deed, 

With hastening step, and with nervous 

apprehension, he went to his tenant laundry. 

He mused, “of course it was too late, it 

was an hour or more since the flannels had 

been given to the carrier. Who knows what 

might have happened in the carrier’s hands? 

Might his curiosity not led him to an inspec. 

tion of its contents? If the laundry maid 

had cast the garments into the suds and 


m 

^ 74 7 

H 




the machine had gone over them, or if she 
had discovered the treasure, it would be all 
the same. Who would know what had be- 
come of it? If the water had dissolved the 
paper package and it had gone into the 
waste unseen, or if the tempting hand of 
poverty had touched it into its own, the 
presumption was all against the careless 
sender. It was at least in her favor, and 
who could prove to the contrary? There 
was the carrier, the water and the woman, 
and who could separate the case and fix it? 
Or, after it was fixed, who could recover 
the precious little bundle fixed in the little 
pocket against the stealthy fingers of the 
pad?” It was his financial all. It was not 
great, but his dependence. On the way to 
this place from his recent home, he had 
divided with the curriculum of a University 




75 


in behalf of a filial member of his family. 




With what was remaining he was in a 
strange land, and was made to feel that he 
was. Every new presence was a marked 
presence for every device to make a subject 
of. With this departure of his pictured 
trust went the vision that was the aureole 
of his domestic altar, the home he had 
come to seek and establish. A new shadow 
had come into his way, and interrupted him 
with no mild distress.” But he made his 
way quietly as possible into the presence 
of the poverty-stricken laundry woman. 
She was at her work, indifferently clad even 
in that rigor of the season. The vapor 
filled the room with the sweat and soapy 
globules rolling and coursing from her 
cheeks. But there being no sign of guilt 
on her face, surely the misfortune is com- 




¥ 



76 


plete. Surely she has put the garment 
with its greenback treasure into the disorder- 
ly element without detection. Almost better 
that she had made it her own, than have 
it go into no human use, but into waste. 
It had left no trace in it to attract attention 
of the woman, or at least to arouse sus- 
picion of what it might be in the uncaring 
hurry to get rid of the unwelcome, but need 
pressing, servile labor. His anxious eyes 
caught the garment, and he thought he saw 
a bit of paper with the bust part of a vign- 
ette faintly traced on it, and with it a piece 
of envelope in which the precious package 
was enclosed. And then as she carelessly 
wiped the damp from her brow, with a few 
shreds of faded calico that was once an 
apron and perhaps some other garment 
before that, he also thought he saw a half 


77 


satisfied air playing in her face with a touch 
of a sinister glance, and sliding from her 
eyes down the cheeks and meeting on her 
lips as she accosted him. The woman had 



seen better days, and had elements for much 
better things than it was her lot, with one 
far in advance of age and far less active, 
though quietly and kindly disposed in which 
he would have been improved by being a 
more industrious and bountiful provider. 
Her eyes, though usually downcast by 
reason of her penury, had not entirely lost 


78 




their luster, nor had their weeping or envy 
dulled the guilelessness of the imploring look 
she gave him when she spoke the sequel. 
She suspected the cause ot his presence, 
even if she did not see his agitation before 
she made her tardy disclosure; “It was a 
mere chance that she had seen it. The 
garment had already been thrust into the 
machine. The water had gone into its tex • 
ture, and as it was brought to the surface 
something that glittered in the style of a 
safety clasp caught her eye. The process 
being arrested, an examination disclosed the 
treasure that was garded by this clasp to the 
sack, made in a convenient but secret point 
of his under-garment.” The casing, though 
not water proof, had preserved it against the 
brief exposure to the element. ' When found 
it was carefully placed under the scant 



79 


pillow on the couch, that made scant rest 
for the mother, anxious with throbbing 
temples, to keep her five children from 
starvation and nakedness, from ignorance 
and shame. She spoke not of temptation, 
nor of reward, as with an air of half bashful 
delight she presented the recovered treasure. 
But to him who received it, the reward lay 
in the easy guard against any temptation. 
There was no sign of any battle, but only 
of the easy act of a native honor. That was 
all, as if it could not have been otherwise, 
and as if nothing otherwise had ever trans- 
pired. There was, however, right there a 
transfiguration of this poverty stricken wo- 
man by the integrity that is transcendent 
in its splendor. He had seen daintily 
dressed ladies sweep by her in the streets 
scarcely deigning to look at her, except to 



-"Ty 



see that their train did not defile itself by 
the touch of her. He had seen the mer- 
chant refuse her the value of the widow’s 
mite, on trust for the morrow’s wage. But 
who out of this grasping life, and life of 
gilded fashion — who out of this mammon 
seeking city could boast of a rival con- 
science or honor, or perchance an equal? 
He, who felt himself her beneficiary, saw 
her averted glances, as she shamed herself 
for her scant apparel. He had heard her 
plaints in her squalor, of the wrongs and 
elegance of others. He himself had felt the 
shafts of her hot words enter his own atti- 
tude. ‘ A saintly test you give of your 
Christian office,” she worded, in trenchant 
and imprecant spirit, “when you would not 
accommodate us in our extremity, brought 
to you by our pleading appeal.” 





81 


“Madam,” he exclaimed, with feelings 
more pitiful than bitter, for it was like a 
thong to his nature, already bearing their 
burdens for the year, and sensitive to their 
squalor. “Madame,” he said, “I made the 
round of the city in your behalf, offering my 
pledges for the modest amount of goods 
your request included, but without avail. 
The business trust is no more open to me, a 
stranger, than it is to you. Your words 
have missed their aim, although not their 
biting sting, by the helpless and isolated 
situation my effort has proven to my own 
case. But I chide you not, for the arrow 
of misfortune has so deeply penetrated your 
soul that it blinds you to the sympathies I 
have shared for you, if it does not close the 
thoughts to much of the cause that has 
settled misfortunes upon you.” 


82 



He could Qot chide, for a presence of 
tested virtue, rarer than elegance or wealth, 
had made her a transfigured personality, 
to be a memory forever. And her implor- 
ing look was cast into his eyes, that made 
him see how much he could make it mean, 
and if it did not cancel at one thought their 
accumulated deficits of a year. 







83 




CHAP. II. 

EPAiRs went on, and there 
was a new tenant. It was 
a solitary one, meditating 
and reflecting the past in- 
NM, to the present, with the 
present into new lines and 
into new forms. It was winter, and the 
lonely habitant passed painful days and 
nights in distempered body, as well as in 
dreams, h.carce of comfort as of pity or 
response, as if some evil genii had gotten 



84 


Sf ^ 

a gleeful lodgement there. Flitting shadows, 
crooning noises, got no timid notions or 
protest, except in some palliatives that were 
concealed in nook and cranny, where the 
biting, rasping, sighing voices came from. 
Then the ghosts were silent — the bane had 
done it. 

“Who was that subject of your persuasive 
art?” as he was just departing into the last 
part of the afternoon that lay out of doors, 
coaxing the sunset into a gloaming. This 
question was thought rather than spoken, 
in the form here given, by the new tenant, 
who had made his presence known once 
before in that commercial shop. Mr. Naw- 
err, the senior partner of it, had been 
wrestling with a weezen-faced, narrow-front- 
e*d specimen of a tradesman that he was 


m 




85 





trying to belabor into a piece of property 
that did not adequately represent his notion 
of what he wanted. It was not exactly 
Greek meeting Greek, but the idioms of 
both were about alike, with less difference 
than the differences in the trade. But the 
subject of Ml . Naw-err took the key that 
was urged upon him with an easy slight of 
hand take, as if his care was less what it 
might imply to the other, than to himself. 
Any concessions, or even pledges, sat easy 
on a conscience, that had need of little dis- 
cipline for a subjection to suit any result 




86 


undertaken by the owner of it. Whatever 
else there was his conscience what there 
was of it, he was the owner of it. It did not 
own him. That much was known and read of 
by the lookers on and dealers with this 
citizen, and not long after, the new tenant 
included. Just now the new tenant thought 
he saw something, which had a hint for 
him, of which he would avail himself by 
inquiring the name of this doubtful subject 
of this artful manipulator. The name, how- 
ever, was rather extracted, as an inquest is 
held over a doubtful cadaver, than other- 
wise, with the injunction serving the extract 
like a guillotine, not to even remotely suggest 
a similar deal to Mr. Knarf Robnons. But 
the keys being returned and the deal entirely 
refused, “what was the discourtesy of a 
little logomachy in the direction that might 


if 


87 


have a more effective result in placing two 
properties into different hands?” 

The new tenant was indifferently known 
and he knew the people and environments 
indifferently. He had come here in late 
autumn and had mixed nothing in society, 
nor had he appeared on the streets, except 
as he went for bits of hardware oi lumber 
to repair his antique and decayed tenement, 
or as he went on a mild foraging expedition 
to replenish his larder for his frugal and 
lonely repast. Nor, if he made quiet his 
way, did he turn observation or inquiry 
from him. He was a stranger —that of itself 
gave him an attraction. Several questions 
leaped out of him as he passed the corner- 
box sitters and gossip givers, if not society 
scrutiners, and grocery catchers. It was 
not easy to place him. “Was he really a 


laboring man, as he now seemed to be, a 
mechanic? And played he the amateur, whose 
intelligence and skill gave him the handi- 
craft for this limited exigency? Was he a 
retired, an obsolete professional? If so, of 
what profession? He seemed rather too 
cheerful for the cloth, the orthodox cloth, 
at least. He seemed too ungrooved for an 
academy professor. He might be this, or 
that, but whatever he was in his day, there 
was no mistaking the fact that he was a 
man of average bearing and intelligence. 
And whatever his purse might be, it was 
safe to get out of him what they could and 
have him pay as he bought.” He was 
alone — his locks, what he had, were on the 
snowy side of color, with the crown peering 
like the ice clad Alps above, leaving a small 
valley where reverence usually burrows. 





timid, or craven, but must be made up else- 
where in him, as was evident by his careful 
speech, positive step, and devout air. At 
the other Valley he had a dignity and a 
Reverened to handle it with, but here he 
made no claim, while he himself had been 
on a quiet inventive, to strike some suitable 
name, as he slipped the title and dropped 
out of his past estate into the present that 
would scarcely justify any distant future. 
But as all art and foresight, as well as inven- 
tion, “held him up,” some Celtic thought 
tumbled from some phrase dusted tome 
into the “Protem.” This Protean thing seem- 
ed to wrap him up in its mental embraces, 
and inserted some of its tentacular fibres clear 
through to hold him to his name. So this 
new tenant added another suspect to his 
presence by the Gaul he put into the sobri- 




90 


quet to call him by, Protem might not be 
an ill-adjusted brevity, although it might 
figure the personality into a subject of more 
than ordinary venture and dealing. “What’s 
in a name?” is not easy to be answered, nor 
to be scoffed at. If no secret is lurking m a 
name, if no talisman, no rythm, no touch, 
no power in it, neither is question here made, 
except to say that Protem suits the period 
that is sandwiched between experience now 
dropping from the pen, and that which is 
waiting beyond it. 

Naw-err now turned his art upon Protem, 
And in order to make power with his subject, 
advanced him part of his small obligation 
which he had made promise to pay and was 
so difficult to do— a difficulty not unusually 
present in all -similar lines of action. If he 
had twin labor with his appetite, it was to 






keep his financial balance even, which in 
this case he made part even by being prof- 
fered a twenty per cent discount. Little 
sums and greater that were so fortunate as 
to get into his promising proclivities, were 
rather too trifling to take his attention, and 
by his imperious movements were usually 
on a long time deposit. But the discount, 
so engaging to Naw err, was not so soothing 
to Protem as to win him to the trader’s 
suit or turn Protem from the notion that 
lay after the subject that had escaped 
Naw-err and was now open to himself. He 
had struck his trail, and after several hillocks 
had been surmounted and as many curves 
and angles had been turned, the end was a 
find, of a grey afternoon in the opening day 
of the week. It was a quiet Sunday stroll 
as only an introductory view could be taken 




with absence of anything like a financial or 
business meditation. He' was incog, and 
his ulterior purpose was also incog — even 
to himself — no mental questions even were 
asked. Everything was mute to him and he 
to it, to be voiceful a day or two later. 
The place was about a half league from town. 

It was somewhat romantically touched on 
the north with primitive points peering out 
of the soil to stud the acres with woody 
rooted sentinels, lopped of their bulk and ~ 
branches, and challenging the muscle of 
whoever he might be who was brave enough 
to subdue and till them. Protem saw noth- 
ing immediately inviting except in the bare 
possibilities. This glowed to his imagina- 
tion, as in the most exuberant style, and 
then threw a glamour over the scene, that 
motived him with endeavor for the possession. 



93 


m 




What house there was 
contained three rooms 
and unfinished, outside 
and in, and only endur- 
able in the bleak s-ite 
for a rigid winter. Cel- 
lar and cistern were the 
gems of the situation, while the berry plat 
was the delight of promise to a fruition of 
hope and of palate. The loft was of easy 
access to tabby and her gopher-catching 
mate, while they together played acrobat up 
and down the unlathed sides, and nestled in 
the warm inside of the two ceilings embrac- 
ing the chimney. 

The customary queen of the realm did 
not appear with society jewels, as Mr. Protem 
was led from the east entrance into the 
northwest apartment of the disheveled cot- 




9t 




tage, by the disheveled matron. She had 
hardly time for that, after the rustic call 
was made at the door, not here voiced as to 
its accents on the panels, that looked as if 
they were away from home, and were too 
home-sick to fit into place, like some other 
things the place was too large for. But the 
panels could not boast over the casing of 
the windows, as this new comer passed them 
both on his way to the wash-room, with tub 
and wash day bric-a brae to suit, the mention 
only of which being lively with the ornate 
stove, ashing at the mouth and wasting 
large beads of sugar sweets from saccharine 
junks of soggy wood, joining with the vapory 
colors from the parabaloid receptacle, to 
serve the fiery ordeal of the dirt-forgiving 
process. The lord of the manor being just 
then absent, the visitor was undisturbed in 




95 


his quest from the softer side of his sub- 
ject, and impioved his opportunity to get in 
some leading questions, not suspicioned with 
any secret or important clues to the trade. He 
had time to note conspicuously the curiously 
wrought periods ot dark design, figuring in 
the face, and near the eyes of the dame, as 
if the seeing had suddenly been arrested at 
a given point. Indeed, one of the periods 
had widened into a dash or exclamation, 
going into one of the corners of the optical 
member, and it looked as if it would shade 
into brown, and then for a final act disap- 
pear through the door of one of the temples. 
Protem was shy of asking how these peculiar 
ebon periods, as he read, were made to point 
a moral or something else, on the brow of 
this otherwise unusual but placid face. Nor 
had he any regrets to bestow for his silence. 


96 


m 



when he read the other face an hour later, 
on both sides of it, with a wedged shaped 

projection over the pair of rabbited eyes, 
set with an iris that has since shot the X ray 
into a motherhood of the most bewitching 
esculapean art. And when he became in- 
formed in addition that in that room every 
day was “wash day,” dark spots here and 
there could only be indigenous with the eye, 
the iris or the casing they were in, to be 
and to grow. There, where the nor’ wester 
struck the sbiplap corner on a zero day, 
the two, with no sweet squallers to beguile 
the passions, or lure the rub of zinc hills 
and valleys, or soothe the rasp of what the 
moreTt rubbed the more it gritted, had their 
past-time, the one submissive, the other pro- 
jective, in tokens of five from the clasp of a 
rounded and inpulsive bundle of digits- 


r 



97 



r 




These tokens were sympathy drawers to the 
submissive and industrious her. They were 
like signs that bleared the clouds to draw 
the rain, and at times drew the heavy strokes 
of Protem upon the gnarly wood to saw 



or cleave it, left for the womanly athlete 
for a change in the use of her brawn to 
supply the sozzling fire, while somebody 
else was sozzling in desired way elsewhere. 
The outside belongings were about twin to 
the domestic interior, and neither were in 
a gorged danger of esthetics, a mild phase 
of which had lazily floated over the pensive 
thought of the picture making Protem. 


3 ^ 


98 



He sketched the situation with his Poetic 
fancv and “Pleasant Hill Place” fell easily 
into name, as if spelled on the steps of the 


entrance with its fitless panels, while 
seeing the distant city beyond the river, 
by the clouds of smoke by day, and the 
gleaming arc by night. The tenement in- 
complete, what a neat cottage though when 
finished. How enchanting the yards beset 
with taste, now beset with weeds and 
crude. The rough fields, set with trees 
of fruit, with all varieties of vines and 
plants what an achievement for rest and 
pleasure for the closing quiet of a life 
mostly spent in an active and anxious pro- 
fession. What a little Paradise to retire 
to, and mostly made by his own industry 
and skill. 

This^was a faint, a broken vision that 



pursued him in the unremitting effort that 
pushed him to his purpose. But could he 
secure it to his hands, and make good this 
picture. Knarf Robnons had already forfeit- 
ed his terms and made them over and also 
greater. The trade had drawn to his 
counsel an array of his clan of asso- 
ciates and those not of them. Besides 
another presence projected itself into the 
case. Past middle age, the man though 
here shielded was of medium stature, as of 



weight — a little stoop of shoulders with 
light of gait and slow of step. His hands 




100 


were smooth and lean of flesh, with fingers 
some of which were of a grasping device, 
and others, as if hooked for clutching some 
dear regarded treasures. His face was 
two-fold — sometimes it seemed as if one 
cheek and eye and corner of his mouth 
were wreathed in a smile, limited to the 
limits of the place it tried to do itself in. 
It was the inviting, the caressing, the 
winning ^[side. It might have only been 
the bright perspective to him wha was in 
quest of favors Semala was for the 
moment inspired over, while the rigid 
crook, and groove and crease of look 
and hand in general repose, escaped the 
favor-seeker as they relaxed from the 
inspired moment, to think how he was to 
take advantage of the gage, that had its 
detail of mort in close adjuncts that made 


m 



the loan and per cent, the excuse for the 
capital he had taken into his confidence 
and pledged his kindly unity by his word 
but not by his bond. “This trade cannot 
follow the conditions until a half-a-hundred 
dollars come to me, ’ said this money 
lender. “This farm and this stock are 
under my ban,” drawled out the medium- 
sized but stifling muttertr, “and no new 
owner can fix himself here without looking 
at me, and except I have some dollars 
for the privilege of coming.” 

“This is a little cloudy,” thought Protem 
“on the transaction I have not antici- 
pated the half-hundred, nor is it in the 
deal with Robnuous — still if it is a little 
more burdenFcme new it will be so much 
lighter at the end. It may be too heavy 
at the beginning to make it anything but 




a disaster to sum up with. I wonder if 
it won’t be,” he added — it was a plain- 
tive sigh that made the addition. 

It was in the sitting room of the unfin- 
ished cottage — the room where the first 
interview was held with the dotted-browed 
matron, mostly engaged in the laundry 
motions with her arms while the other 
part of the househol-J was interviewed 
afterwards — and who now is perched in 
the corner with an indignant, sombre brow. 

“Why should I pass the document over 
to you Sir, before you have fulfilled the 
part which makes the obligation you want 
me to honor? If you have already for- 
feited your pledges after several weeks of 
opportunity and demand to fulfill, what 
business principle is justified fo give in 
effect the receipt in full for what has 


if 




103 



-'TnT' 



beeij violated in doubtful attention to your 
promises.” As if this distrust weighted 
him . with injured innocense or his suspi- 
cion that he was foiled in some secret 
purpose, he reasserted himself hy all the 
imprecations usual to such efforts to make 
prompt response to . all his obligations 
called for in the obligation for which he 
plead. He also protested against any 
slight to his integrity in the deficit part 
of his side of the performance. Mr. 
Protem thereupon reinforced with an 
impulse of confidence, handed him over 
the coveted document that put him in 
jeopardy for a sum of money that could 
now only be looked upon as a mere con- 
tingency. He had already seen how this 
poser of honor had clothed a snowy mound, 
with an obligated ton of hay that was 



104 


F 




scarcely more than a part on the other 
side of the middle. Cords of wood were 
on the short side of the measure, and the 
quality of it was on the down grade. 
The swine was affected towards the lesser 
value than the fertile brood that trilled 
from his lips. And other divers things 
came up to his ‘ vision, like a fakeless 
army of Robnons brooding. But while in 
this instance Protem felt his integrity 
was as dissolute as the profligacy of a 
bedlam, he did have lingering trust that 
his subject was not so lost to manly respect 
— not so bankrupt in honor -as to make 
the most solemn averments, and then smile 
over the thought that he was expected to 
keep his promises, by which he had gained 



I 


the confidence of his victim, as he had 
gained the document, that no more justi 



105 



il3f 


fied his possession of it than if he had 


turned bandit, and indulged “a stand and 


deliver.” 

The exchange of property had been 
made, the last of the winter having been 
passed in the new quarters, while the early 
summer was seen coming into the farther 
edge of spring, with expectancy that had 
partial answer in the presence of another 
member of his domestic circle, just fresh 
from the university. 



W 


106 ■ 



CHAP III. 







pposiTE Pleasant Hill 
Place was a neighbor of 
peculiar parts, and with 
a history that had a 
touch of light romance. 
He had been ^attracted 
by the repute of the 
rare soil and the prob- 
abilities in real estate. Mr. Teuton was of 
solitary number, but was varied of craft, 
supplying the builder’s art, putting himself 
tD the garden toil, displaying skill in the 
culinary line and adapting himself to the 
trader’s trust. Recrptious were not want- 
ing by the friendly neighbors, nor the cheer 


W 


* 


107 



m 


0 



they were thinking they were worthily be- 
stowing. The former partner of his domes- 
tic cares, and the mother of his daughter 
was to reside in town, where he could 
see them at intervals from his labor in the 

► 

new country, to be rejoiced if not refresh- 
ed by their friendly greetings and associ- 
ations. Mr. Protem had, however, come 
into a singular request, which included a 
call at the Teuton cottage for a friendly 
office to indite a properly-worded letter on 
his behalf to an attorney, who was manag- 
ing his defense in a suit for divorce, and 
who had written that the divorce was 
already granted. But Mr. Teuton would be 
partially compensated that she with the 
child nearly grown into womanhood would 
reside near, to supply him at least with 
the sight of his daughter, while he supplied 


108 



them both with the comfortable tenement, 
and other comforts they were to modestly 
require. The woman craft had gained ad- 
vantage of his purse by this seeming arrange- 
ment only to disappoint the too confiding 
confessor that she had cause for the step 
she had taken. But the situation, while it 
drew the sympathy of his neighbors, not 
being conversant with the hidden secret of 
the affair, did not disconcert the ambition 
of the lonely mis-spoused Mr. Teuton, to do 
away with the lonely misfortune and possess 
himself of another of the many that were 
as good for a catch as ever took the hook, 
in the matrimonial sea before. Taking 
himself to the printer’s art, he was not 
long waiting for more responses than even 
his varied tact was able to accommodate. 
He soon found himself in an extremity of 



m 



choice, it was difficult to manage, and not 
more by reason of his warm preference, 
than by the difficulty that appeared in 
his way to suit himself thereto. The lady 
that had the embargo on his affections 
“was not only very intelligent, but of proper 
ty in her own right, of stately bearing, and 
well connected.” But '^as he was being 
absorbed in the acquisition of such a 
prize, and assured of his speedy possession, 
it suddenly turned that the lady was 
attached to a church that made it impos- 
sible for her to take to her heart, the 
heart whose tie had been- once larcerated 
by the cut of a court. The pleasure at 
the other end of the line, was divided 
with the sorrow of this, and neither the 
artful one nor the lover-victim, was in- 
formed as to respective emotions that came 





no 



to the tantilizing her, or to the indignant 
him. Turning now to the weaker rival, it 
was soon known that Mr. Teuton had 
decoyed a Missouri maiden of mature 
years, to visit him and spare him expense 
and time for his trip and return, during 
the busy season, while they could in 
their own Teuton cottage speak their con- 
nubial pledges together in their mutual 
or familiar language. The prospective 
haying arrived and the nuptials also, 
the appropriate congratulations of rustic 
neighbors followed at a moon lit banquet, 
treated by a teutonic amber the foam of 
which the guests permitted the hosts a 
sole imbibing, they being content with 
the java or mocha, and preferring their 
aroma to the other. Good cheer was 
accorded the newly wedded party which* 







ni 



proceeded duly to the usual routine of 
domestic felicities, and fruit growing, the 



wife being the out-door partner to the 
labor. Thereafter the passers by could 
see the acres in the angle of the road 
wed by the wedded two, in the outward 
bliss of hymen’s mortals. Shadows doubt- 
less chased each other, as they did the 
sky above them, and under which they 
were extracting the mutiflora weed as 
they were extracting anticipations of the 
crops they were nurturing, with the 
pleasures they were nurturing also. But 
not many moons waxed and waned when 



illfe 


the people who had witnessed the lawn 
reception, wondered what had become of 
the honey-moon, and if there ever had 
been any. At any rate it was creeping 
into the gossip. '.that Mr. Teuton had 
disappeared from the cottage. The 
woman fallen in love by printer’s ink had 
become disconsolate over his non return, 
and having no other resource after a 
lapse of sufficient assurance and sorrow 



retired back to lier former home as 
solitary as she had left it, to say nothing 




113 






of the new experience she was carrying 
back with her as a treasure to her parents 
and her future life. Not being able to 
take the score of acres with her, she 
departed with all the exuberant sympathy 
the neighbors bad left for such a finale 
so singular lu that region of bucolic 
pursuits. The business centre of the town 
was rather more disturbed by interest m 
the late groom than by sorrow over the 
forsaken biide. Lively proprietors could 
be seen shadowing to and fro in search 
for the effects that might be familiar, to 
be replaced in their possession, while 
the improved tenement put itself with smil 
ing welcome back into the hands of the orig- 
inal holder, the whole forming an episode as 
exciting and lasting, as the late marital 
event, and the brevity of the honey-moon. 




Meanwhile affairs were in progress at 
Pleasant Hill Place. Protem and Nillor 
had genuine companionship, together. It 
had no moon-shiuing sweetness, nor con- 
tingency. They luxuriated in cream and 
berry, with golden butter, and other table 
esculents. The appetite made keen by 
the efforts required to get them, made 
their escort to the seat where* they were 
passed upon and relished, with tlieir 
antecedent gustation to confirm the action. 
Pleasant Hill Place had caused itself to 
be an attraction by the owner-ship it had 
newly involved^ It had single attraction 
by a young animal that came with the 
other effects of the estate. It was a 
beauty of the Jersey kine, with a human 







115 





portent in its face, and dumb speech. 
She challenged the eyes that came to 
see her, and the pride and admiration of 
those that saw her every day and was 
glad to be her ministering servants on 
her progress into mother-hood. And all 
the more she drew the grief, when 
one day the soil was parted for a grave 
to receive her and her child companion, 
and to set this bereavement in pearls, 
sparkling like spangles in the misty sun- 
light, and give recurring wonder, if some 
human soul had not been incarnated in 
this “beauty of a beast.” But other 
attractions were there, besides beauty 
and prospects and delights. It may 
have been a superstitious fancy, but it 
seemed as if the place contained extreme 
of favors on the one hand, and extreme 



116 




of ill design on the other, and that there 
was a battle between them for the mastery, 
the one coming by the present occupant, 
the other present and in force by the 
one just vacating. A charm of pleasure 
was contested by a spell of sinister hold, 


scarcely suspected by the confiding and 
trusting Protem. If the latter had not 
priority of claim, or its late occupant 
was not leader, he must be allied to a 
raft, whose sympathies and efforts made 
habitation there, and were a league 
going to and fro by secret ways from 
other haunts to this, and the guileless 
newcomer was not suspicious of. He 
was known to the craft and passed as a 
Tenderfoot, and by the easy way he had 
been duped by the chief conspirator. 





. 117 



that was no doubt inviting the otheit, to 
their plausible and brtraying efforts. If 
there was any planning or plottiug it was 

carefully concealed by the initial pro- 

% 

ceedings, that had nothing in it but the 
semblance of the most sincere and honest 
transactions. “Say, Mr. Protem,” was 
the imperative like a tramp sentence, 
and Mr. Protem stopped as he was on 
foot going down town in a narrow defile 
between two sides of densely wooded 
flanks of the road. It was a neighbor 
though, who wanted a response in the 
value of the little farm that he would be 
glad to buy. Mr. Darkfi kle had been 
to Pleasant Hill Place, and was enamored 
of it, and would possess it. Then came 
another. 



118 


ARD Pra was known 



to be on familiar terms 
with Chief Robnons and 
might unsuspectedly be 
his lieutenant which 
was more than sus- 
picioned a little further 

on. “PH give you 

dollars,” said he “for that new milker, half 
to be cash, the other half in coupons.” The 
offer was a small figure in the first 
place, hut when the coupon was the 
other half, cutting the value in two, 
with the profit on the sugar and tea in 
his behalf and that much compulsion on 
the trade of the other, it looked as if 
nothing except low purchases ‘was as dear 
to the heart of Mr. Pra as coupons. 





His first care was to coup himself, 
although it was afterwards learned that 
all traders like him were in the coupon 
exercise, and thrived on it. The mercan- 
tile craft had that kind of deal with the 
bucolic truckers, and butterers, and chick 
eners, with scarcely enough cash for 
taxes or a 4th of July excursion into patriot- 
ism and fireworks. Some playful sarcasm 
called it a coupon city but what it was 
the coupon ot was referred to Nampach 
of Esculapean origin, as oracle, with 
his lusty avoirdupois, and his box in his 
brawny hands, that was the protege of 
the ancient, but ill-dispensing Pandora. 

“You can afford her for that” con- 
tinued said pard Pra, “in consideration 
of the trade you made with my friend 
Robnons.” “O, you think I ought to 


W 


120 




share with you in any profit I may have 
made in my deal? Is it the fashion of 
business people here to say “stand and 
deliver, stand and divide,” if any chance 
advantage comes to a stranger ? Are 
you a tariff gatherer for individual revenue, 
and is the lucky fellow that can get his 
hand first in the pocket, justified by 
every other fellow on the list. Besides 
there is no such advantage on my side, 
as is evident to the eye sensitive to the 
situation. Indeed it is more likely the 
t-iher way by the contingencies that are 
possible. At any rate it would be a 
gladness to me to be situated as I was 
before the transaction,” Mr. Protem 
then fell into an audible homily on an 
array of Ishmaelites or ransom-squeezers 
though he did not mean to use this form 


121 






of speech or expect a reply. “O well, 
Pra carelessly said,” in an eaily day a 
few of the pioneers were of the most 
intelligent, respectable, friendly and hos- 
pitable as well as industrious people. 
Then came a swarm of a different class 
as if to prey upon these, and it may be 
that these latter have given majority to 
the population that have now a seeming 
control of the valley. I must say re- 
turned Mr. Protem that I have found 
some excellent friends, and neighbors. “O, 
yes there are some good people in Mis- 
souri Valiev,” he sighed and he turned 
away with a murmur and a musing. 



122 


CHAP. IV. 




a* 


The promise that would care for the 
dairy, kept distant as when it was made if 
indeed it did not recede farther and farther. 
He would therefore reduce it. Providence 
having reduced the best part of it, or the 
watcher did that looks for, and “loves a 
shining mark” even with pets with hoofs on, 
he would do the other part. He had hardly 
declared himself that way, before a presence 
said, “I learn that you will exchange that 
milk-giving animal for the other kind of 
animal that works on a farm.” He was in 
a semi-smile, and tried to be a little facetious 
with a shambling drawl of his words and a 
shambling stride of his body as he advanced 
a little distance by the object of his pursuit. 
“This pony, although not large, will do the 


IP 



123 




/T5T5^ 


light pulls on the plow, and do service for 
you that will make us even Besides I will 
in the near future return you a couple of 
dollars for the likeness by her side.” The ex- 
change was made and the city Selyas went his 
way. He took the stock to be returned, and 
to be re-exchanged, if the warranted qualities 
were wanting. But the request made to cure 
the defects lingered on the ear, which for some 
other defect never heard to a response, al- 
though urgently pressed. It was never conven- 
ient for the Selyas, nor the two dollars, turned 
in a few days into a half dollar more by the 
sale of the little animal, but not turned into 
the pocket where the major part of them 
belonged. Nor was it convenient for’the pony 
to accommodate the words of him whose 
integrity for truth was hardly as white as 
the outside of ihe pony, and whose inside 
was seen to be very much like the master he 
came from. 


124 


Not many weeks after, a couple of gentle- 
manly forms appeared upon the scene. They 
had “heard that a white animal of the pony 
styl? fit for herding purposes, was here 
unsuited to the services desired. Here was 
a fine animal, and was at Mr. Protein’s option 
to serve him in his bucolic pursuit.” And to 
make a test of his will as a traveler, he 
stepped to the bidding of the new reinsman 
a few rods in advance and returned to the 
place from whence he started. Besides he 
had come the whole distance from the town 
and silenced any suspicion that he would 
utterly refuse his motor power with any new 
master. The desired bonus being waived the 
pony and their new owners were quickly on 
their retreat. The new animal being farther 
tested as to his obliging carriage proclivities, 
having indulged a rather insinuating leer with 
his ears, to say nothing of the heeling part 
of him, he was quickly detatched and led into 



1-^5 


the stable. It wasn’t his time to go, not 
before that kind of a vehicle, and the present 
owner never inquired of him why he went 
just enough to come into his ownership, and 
then stopped. Of course it was a flattering 
thought that so noble a looking steed wanted 
to be his, but Mr. Protem would prefer- that 
he would transport him proudly in the little 
easy conveyance, the pony never once 
objected to. However he seemed to take 
special delight in propelling the Protem 
farmer in the state of cavalry, and making 
him feel like a military, minus the epaulets 
and pistols, but with temptations to the use 
of the latter included. “That’’ said Nillor, 
“was the same buggy with large letters, that 
we saw going by here yesterday, and quickly 
returning after just passing the premises, 
back towards the city, but they were not the 
same men in it, that came to-day, the others 
were just reconnoitermg.” The elder com- 



life 


panion replied, “and it is the same vehicle 
I saw in what purported to be a livery in the 
west end of the city, which looked to me like 
headquarters of a league of which these men 
are part, and where people could start from 
with a purpose^that included with others the 
farmer on Pleasant Hill Place. Nor was the 
suspicion lessened when a few days there- 
after the color of the face against whose ears 
some pungent questions were sent, made 
witness that they had touched some uncanny 
subject. 

But a neighbor came to his relief. He had 
a beast that was used to do the farm and 
rather liked it. She was white, but not from 
age. Though somewhat ancient yet she was 
useful without reserve having no checks on 
labor which she would pass in just at the time 
when her muscle was needed. But it was 
later noticed that there were some checks on 
her breathing, which had been forgotten to 




127 





be mentioned by the long but secret owner, 
A few weeks of useful relief had now come 
to the two at Pleasant Hill Place, and some 
and some advance had been made under the 
faithful industry of the new motor with the 
plow and among the stumps. This was 
broken into by the appearance of a kindly 
mannered gentleman driving up to the mixed 



picket and wire fence, at the front. And 
having gained the attention of the proprietor 
made known that he ’‘had an animal of 
suitable age, and with proper qualities for a 






farmer. While his feet were tender for the 
road he would recover in the furrow and on 
the caressing soil.” What suggested his 
coming was learned by the knowledge he 
divulged of the animal the two gentlemen 
had exchanged for the white pony. “Surely” 
reasoned the much besieged Mr. Protem, 
“there must be a chain of fellows that are 
linked in pursuit of what is being perpetrated 
on me.” But he would see that this was the 
end of this pursuit call it what we may. He 
drew the line at brittle hoofs, and he was 
somewhat sensitive as to tender feet. But 
ere he had dismissed his visitor he was 
accosted as to his eyes, by a peculiarly 
appearing pageant, and then by the thing 
that voiced it. It was not exactly in imita- 
tion of the Queen of Sheba nor was it with 
out state, and royal paraphernalia with 
queenly address and command and wearing 
sable apparal signalizing her recent bereave- 
ment. Her spouse’s absence was variously 




129 



described. He had “died” had “gone over 
the river,” had “passed away,” etc. The 
funeral spokesman said he was a “good 
fellow,” resolute as a pioneer, and that his 
little mistakes he was accustomed to, with 
the bigger last one that made his exit some- 
what untimely, would probably not be ac- 
counted against him where he was supposed 
to have gone. But all this did not make 
Protem fall in very sympathetically with the 
“good fellow” part when he remembered the 
discount extracted out of him to get the other 
part of the little sum, and the item the 
widow — she of this imposing pagaeut, 
affirmed, was set in his journal for service in 
the exchange of this property. “O yes! 
let me see,” said Mr. Protem rather 
obsequiously. “Services!” “When he would 
not even introduce me to Ro'onons, when his 
efforts were all used against the trade, when 
he persisted in an endeavor to exchange 
properties himself with me. He industriously 





130 


m 






urged me to a rustic seat, with no access 
except what might be borrowed from 
neighbors if they were not acridly disposed, 
and when reached I would have to be “shod” 
with something other than the “preparation 
ot the gospel of peace,” to get on its altitudi- 
nous proportions. The stumps might have 
been willing to interpose their friendly 
service to keep me from sliding the seat, 
while the spring at the bottom might have 
been open to a refreshing relief, but the 
inducements of a three hundred and fifty 
dollar “boot” were not strong enough to 
draw me to the sight even. Yes, madam 
Services, and the ebony dressed lady passed 
away like a fleeting phantom, leaving behind 
a murmer seasoned with womanly impreca- 
tions, over anticipations set with pen and 
ink, and copied from a. false fifty, to his 
credit, and to his post-humeous assets for 
the fast re-gaying relict. 

The autumn with its season of drought 






131 


3 # 




back of it, with other adverse things added 
having weaked the romance of Pleasant Hill 
Place the opportunity to tranfser it to other 
hands was not tardily accepted. And Mr. 
Taivo was conditioned in the possession of it, 
while Mr. Protem returned to the city. ' Now 
although spending mostly the winter in 
special privacy during the week, he made his 
Sabbath intervals at one of the churches, 
where the cordial welcome was reciprocated 
by fraternal responses and devotions. All 
privileges were guilelessly taken as open to a 
common brotherhood, until one morning the 
preacher in charge suggested that the cere- 
mony peculiai to the body he' represented 
was a desirable performance in waiting for 
him, who had been worshiping with them in 
their hospitable way, for several Sabbaths 
together. But to Mr. Protein, who had been 
worshiping on the basis of a common 
Christian Liberty, and knew no sect in the 
professed unsected body he was temporarily 





132 


■ 

with, and no sect for himself anywhere to 
abridge the freedom of the spirit, it did seem 
that such privilege could be worthily enjoyed 
without conceding the essentials of that 
ceremony, or justifying the compensation of 
an absorption of himself by means of it. 
The suggestion rather staggered the sensitive 
brother, who had availed himself of what he 
supposed carried nothing with it, except the 
individual liberty common to all, and as one 
being absent from his own communion 
entitled to the usual courtesies in the wel- 
come to this temporary privilege of a 
common fellowship. 

By this time the ludicrous side of the 
situation forced itself upon Protem, and some- 
what neutralized whatever seemed gloomy 
and calamitous. If conspiracies seemed 
against him, he conceived that there was 
wisdom as well as fortune in extracting the 
sweet out of the bitter, and that there might 








133 







\ 


be genius and pleasure in the exercise, the 
effort in which, affording sensations and 
compensations not as easy to relate as to 
enjoy. The pleasant greetings at the Retsof 
mansion, w-ith the sumptuous table entertain- 
ments and the social cheer at the baronial 
castle of^ the honorable Benjocx, gracefully 
presided over by his accomplished lady 
besides kindly favors of other contiguous 


friends, w'ere delights in the summering of 
the year. The miscellaneous memories had 
their steady power to break the monotone’of 
the rustic cottage, as also the shiver of 
winter, and make the “silver lining” absorb 
itself into the whole outside fabric. And 
even this steady power was seasoned with 
salient points of interest, like a climax rising 
over one still higher, a like marvel breaking 
into other marvels. 




\ 






134 




ills 




t 




It was a special fete, a mystic event, a 
festive occasion of the mystic tie. The 
temple of the craft was touched into splendor. 
The ?»ssembly was brilliant and expectant. 



The master of ceremony sat with the great 
symbol ai a peculiar position as if fated 
with much the same superstition of a gibbous 
moon over the left shoulder. He proceeded 
and then as if he had forgotten, or as if him- 
self was alien, directed alien, and uninitiate 
to the altar and to displace the rightful ser- 
vice at the mystic ‘?hrine All at once a 
night cloud dimmed the temple and a voice 
that shivered into plaintive speech moaned 





135 



> ^1 


I>li1 

out “O profane !’’ And the air trembled 

with audible quavers, when the shades, of the 

“Hirams” sighed through the tresses of 

mothers and maidens, to lend their plaintives 

to the orphan’s wail, over the service so 

inapt and yet so fraught with opportunity for 

the honor of the name that has no rival in 

literature, or bond of pledge under the One 

Great Existent. And following this a sign 

of Solomon’s glory was flashed upon the 

scene to burn into incandescence and arc, 

and to emphasize the excellencies that were 

here still present, although left mute and in 

regretful silence, yet broken into audible 

translucence and power by the occult majesty 

that presides over the mystic destiny. 

But this was more than rivaled elsewhere. 

In the Sivadlf villa was a facinating but 

unique centre of social and occult life. She 

who presided over it was also chief in the 

••V; ’ 


^ 136 ^ 

m 




% 





palace of business. Here suitable repartee 
was often laid away for the parlor This 
was well furnished to the tasteful eye where 
subjects were suggestive of discussion, with 
keenest brain and tongue to discuss them 
interspersed by elegant piano, touched by an 
accomplished artist and song giver. Besides 
tlie art domestic a master of the cuisine 
added itself to the memories to be admired 
not excepting the other events that were 
charged with the marvels that are beginning 
to go out of the marvel business into the 
natural order of high art To be present at 




137 



-nr 



Seances, all unconcious, where conversation 
from across the border could be enjoyed at 
call, where sweet voices and instrument 
would give their choruses and their melodies, 
where favored eyes could see the forms, and 
ears could hear the friendly words, and the 
surpassing svmphuuies, all this was a grate- 
ful gratuity thaf made lonely isolations timid 
if not entirely absent, with pleasing 
imaginings, if not substantial realizations in 
the touch and thought and joy. 

One morning Mr. Protein was in receipt 
of a most cordial invitation to a visit to be 
prolonged at convenience or pleasure. The 
counsel of the two was not long in deciding 
the reply. Ready adjustments were made to 
suit the departure. Disposing of his effects, 
meagre, but dear by the use and association 
of more than a generation of years, the elder 
found himself in a few days after, in a 
distant state, while his younger companion 
was pleasantly situated in a rural district 




138 






among friends a few hundred miles eastward. 
Having reached the hospitable home to which 
he had been so cordially invited, an 
immediate change was made apparent. His 
hostess and her husband being prominent in 
the city, he took his usual ^ank in society. 
Positions heretofore occupied, were not 
entirely uiikiiown to them with whom he 
came in contact, while several brief visits in 
years past were remembered by his pulpit 
presence, and especially by a felicitous 
effort in the dedication of a nearly related 
child, now past her first decade of years. 
Mr. Wachter now also made his contribu- 
tions befitting his title and the experience 
it had brought him. His leisure and reflec- 
tion made him progress, and advanced him 
to thoughts and influence beyond his former 
days, though only in the private way he 
choose to exercise them. 

The season passing in a justified security 
concerning his homestead, lie had condition- 





139 


ally trusted to the possession of another. Mr. 
Wachter was nevertheless not without 
anxiety as to the sequel of the year. Nor 
was he less than acutely touched when a 
weekly paper came containing the betraying 
action of Semala, this action being as con- 
cealed as possible it being conveyed to the 
borrower by a frit nd of the latter. Although 
the assurance had been given that the delin- 
quency to Semala would he soon met by the 
sum in sight, from the sources as planned in 
the first place, proceedings bad been hastily 
instituted by the money lender to further 
encumber the homestead. And when 're- 
monstrance was made for this breach of trust 
It was met by an offer to suspend action by 
lifting twice the burden he had before in the 
costs that helped no one except as it put a 
large slice into the hands of his attorney. 
So the parson could do no more than to 
have Semala pursue his mercenary purpose 
to the end. Hence he wrote the money 





140 





'vr-’ 


lender, “what surety have I that you will 
even stay proceedings? You said you would 
not begin them. You have forfeited your 
word once, what assurance have I that you 
will not again betray me. You will make no 
legal bond, and if I should make the effort 
what doubt is there that with the advanced 
cash in pocket the deceit would be renewed 
and the same cost would be renewed before 
I had time to shut you against all possible 
action against the principal ? Last year your 
small borrower was delinquent for weeks, 
but the effort against him was not made 
because the property would not warrant the 
expense. But the homestead on Pleasant 
Hill Place would, with the chances to fall into 
your hands at a little more than half its 
value. No, you did not want the principal 
not that nor the other principle. But you 
wanted Pleasant Hill Place. You wanted 
the parson’s homestead, his of the church 
you said was yours, and in which he had put 



the last penny foi his closing years. Others 
did themselves against his efforts While 
Robnons and Nawerr and Pumpker and 
Selyas and Taivo did their pickings, all their 
number cannot compare with Semala. You 
did more than they all. You are a whole 
combination by yourself, and you will have 
the satisfaction such as it is, to have done 
more than they all. This will be the crown 
of your joy in the memory of the valley. It 
will not be the mite of the widow, but the 
might of the miser to clink the dirge of dis- 
honor to the name of Semala forever.” 

The personal condition of Mr. Wachter 
was most satisfactory. His lines were music 
“in pleasant places” and he sang the sweet" 
airs quietly with friendly and responsive 
listeners. His welcome was warm and his 
immediate needs were iunply fulfilled. 
Choice friends had come to him, through the 
honors of his hostess and host. Rare oppor- 
tunities in conversation, and reading with 



14a 





literary and musical companionship were 
in favor. Books and reflctions were his 
enriching treasurers, while his pen was his 
recording angel to thoughts some of which 
were born a half century before, and were 
fruiting in this inspiring season. 

Yet, while enjoying this personal advantage, 
the secular situation still ran with devious 
concern through his emotions like a turbid 
stream, although not without a secret trust 
running along side of it, that had an earnest 
of some favor that some Providence would 
open to him, pending the homestead’s final 
going into the encumbrance. Awaiting the 
closing result a special message came of no 
ordinary surprise, The message was from 
Trah, the second in the encumbrance holding, 
the pawned as also the defrauding part of it. 
Heretofore Trah had encouraged 'Taivo in 
his defaults, rather than in the promptness 
that would have gained him his due; but now 
he was of wiser and milder mood. Then a 



shadow came over this rift of hope, that 
would secure a little margin to his rifled 
pocket — rifled of nearly half a thousand. 
Then also came a new promise and a success- 
ful transaction in sale by which a small sum 
was saved of Pleasant Hill Place, to whom it 
was once so enamoring, but which had now 
passed to little value, and less to a redemp- 
tive value. There was mystery in it, but it 
was the marvel of the “manna in the wilder- 
ness,” or like the “honey in the carcass,” 
even after all the pickers had their beaks in 
it. And it all took on a ludicrous sensation 
when review recalled the list of pickers and 
with what greed they fell on Pleasant Hill 
Place, and the Tenderfoot, He could see 
Knarf Robnons when he chuckled over his 
broken promises and boasted “how nice they 
looked and how he had absorbed part of 
Pumpkers’ debt also.’’ He could hear Semala 
say “I scooped the superannuated — it was 
a chestnut about his church -and I 


144 


would have scooped the property — as I 
wanted to scoop Robnons’ horses — if it had 
not been for the way Trah was involved and 
had to turn himself to save what he had in it. 
By that means the Parson got a little out of 
it as he was praying, and I didn’t get 
“Pleasant Hill Place.” He could hear the 
others in their different exploits, about their 
trades, about the calf and the homestead. 
And he thought he imagined how even Nawerr 
looked up from bis abyss in a respite of joy 
to mingle himself with his familiar fratres, 
over the scene. 

In less than a decade was seen a modest 
villa in one oi the popular states, 
sporting the motto “Ad Astra, Per Aspera.” 
It was on the border of a city, with an in- 
telligent as well as enterprising people. 
Institutions of more than ordinary rank 
graced the town — At the South was the near 
touch of the Great River. On the north line 
swept the swift and popular railway, whose 



majesty gave it daily interest, and played its 
passage, connecting the Golden Gate of the 
West with the great metropoles of the East. 
The enclosure was hounded in its whole 
extent with trees, skirted by Box, and Maple 
and Mulberry. The park, with borders 
equi-distant from the centre, and extending 
transversly east and west, converted the 
underflow of the river into a lake stocked 
with indigenous fish, and screened to hold 
them for the ever-changing water to give 
them freshness for their growing. On its 
banks were the weeping ash and willow inter- 
spersed with the larch and other deciduous 
trees, while the honey-suckle trailed its 
flowery tendrils among the branches to make 
them ornate, as the lofty rose added its 
beauty and made it all fragrant. 

The enclosure itself was of like extent as 
the one of lost memory, with finer soil, more 
genial skies, and climate to bless it. The 
cottage was neatly set, and centred in a lawn. 



146 





m 


with sparkling fountain, dotted with flowers, 
clustered with plants in their seas-en, which 
had little rigor of winter. — The conservatory 
was the winter garden of the villa, including 
a choice variety of plants and flowers, 
situated with easy access to the Home- 
Keeper. The trellis with luxuriant vine- 
leafed beauty lifting into the. spaces, with the 
rustic bower, closely covered with creeper 
and grape, was a symbol tryst of the long 
ago, which went into the clouds just beyond 
a half decade thereafter, but keeps bright 
behind it. 



Phenix Park Villa overlooked the Shire City 
of the county, whose name is a talisman of 
the Cross, that glows its luddy glory into the 
ministrations, while between it and the city 
intervened the landscape of lakelet and 
grove and meadow goldened with grain in 




147 




F*. 

V 

saoirner, with spangles in winter for the pris- 
matic splendors to the eye. This landscap? 

was glory by day, while bv night the electric 

lighted the many numbered mansions set 

in the emarald splendor of the leafy arches 

or in the brightness of the moon lit sheen 

of the colder sky. The amateur Gardner, 

the Parson, the Poet and Author passed 

the four-score, was still strong in his limbs, 

clear in his brain, happy in his leisure, 

inspiring in his prayers and blissful in his 

home. A limited, but well selected library 

was his companion, much of which had 

grown with him in his professional years, 

and was to him versatile, pleasant and 

instructive. 

Restful and happy in the memory of 
his sons and daughters which he had nur- 
tured and educated, they were the pride 
of himself and the honor of society. The 
Aureole about him was but the angel part- 
ner to the Aroma of the place, with 

flit 


^ . 148 ? 




elements united to keep them both redolent. 

Here he drew large draughts of delight 
from Nature and the wine of the king 
dom. with foregleams of the years yet to 
be, and the glory of the Elysium that 
was pouring splendors on his way. 



“The master of ceremony sat with the 
great symbol at a peculiar position as if fated 
\Hth the same superstition of a gibbous’rnoon 
over the left shoulder.” (See page 135 ) 




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A TALE 

OF 

TWO VALLEYS. 


IN TWO FARTS. 


BY 

KEY, ASA COUNTRYMAN. 

•— # — 



GREAT BEND, KANSAS. 

1897. 


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